The article I'm about to link to, by Oliver Reichenstein, is pretty terrible, but it's a good way for me to bring up something I've been meaning to talk about. First, the article: "Apple has been working on its file system and with iOS it had almost killed the concept of folders - before reintroducing them with a peculiar restriction: only one level! With Mountain Lion it brings its one folder level logic to OSX. What could be the reason for such a restrictive measure?" So, where does this crusade against directory structures (not file systems, as the article aggravatingly keeps stating) come from?

Apple depends on those "Geeks" he speaks so poorly about to produce content for Apple to publish, websites for Macs to read, and programs that run on their computers and i-devices. That's why they can't even take your console away, because they know their developers still need it.

I beg to differ. Given how much revenue OSX generates compared to iOS one might very well say that it wouldn't hurt Apple much to ditch entire platform apart from the fact that OSX is the development platform for iOS. The latter could be remedied by porting XCode to Windows.

I don't think there is any intrinsic need for Apple to continue supporting UNIX desktop (or server). Of course, for the time being the OSX is development platform and testbed for technologies but we've also seen that Apple provides special hardware for developers and noone else. In the end of the day we could only have idevices and development system for the subscribed developers and Apple's revenues largely maintained at the same level (but profit margin could be even higher since they wouln't need to support millions of end users).

They would lose ownership of the "whole widget" if they gave development away to Windows users, and especially if they gave up their PC platform.

Sure, they could survive financially, maybe even for years after the bad press died down... but Apple would be a body without a head if they did that. The magic behind the Apple experience that so many users enjoy would not survive.

However as a Windows user, I would welcome that development. Microsoft is pretty good about making sure Windows stays a decent development platform. They might even help Apple cut off its own head by working with them to build those compiling options and Apple libraries directly into Visual Studio. Then Apple wouldn't have to worry about Xcode either. They could just be a dumb phone and gadget manufacturer like everybody else. It would be sad, but I'd get over it pretty quick.